The present invention relates to a floor structure of a vehicle body center section to which a rear seat is mounted.
Conventionally, a floor structure of a vehicle body center section in a vehicle such as an automobile includes a main floor panel and a rear floor panel that are provided along a vehicle longitudinal direction, and a front portion of the rear floor panel is joined to a rear portion of the main floor panel. At a front side of the rear floor panel, a vertical wall that extends upward is formed, and on an upper portion of the rear floor panel located at a rear side of the vertical wall, a rear seat is installed. Furthermore, a fuel tank is disposed in a lower side of the rear floor panel that is located at the rear side of the vertical wall. Therefore, the rear floor panel has an open section structure.
In the floor structure as above, the rear seat is provided with a rear seat leg that extends downward along the vertical wall of the rear floor panel from a lower portion of a front side, and the rear seat is mounted on a top surface of the rear floor panel by fastening a lower end portion of the rear seat leg to a bottom portion of the front side of the rear floor panel (refer to, for example, Patent Literature 1).
However, in the conventional floor structure of the vehicle body center section described above, the rear floor panel is of an open section structure, and the rigidity of the front side portion of the rear floor panel is insufficient. Therefore, when the rear seat is displaced toward the vehicle front side by an impact load from the vehicle front side, the load that is exerted on the upper portion of the rear seat becomes a moment, the rear floor panel located at the mounting portion of the rear seat leg is locally deformed, the mounting portion of the rear seat leg rotates toward the vehicle front side and cannot support the rear seat, and thus the rear seat is likely to move to the vehicle front side to a large extent.